So, my brother Mike came back from Ethiopia and got posted back to Virginia Beach, which made everybody really happy – especially his wife and kids since that means they don’t have to move.  But they did move into a bigger place (which also made everybody happy).  So while Mike was still in Gulf Port and Christi was busy studying for her exams I figured I would come up for the weekend and help with the unpacking.

Kyler and Jaden had been sharing a room for a while, and now they each had their own room (hooray!) and their own mess (oh boy…).  It took us two days, but we got it all done.  The first day, I left Jaden unpacking her books (Move over, Library of Congress!  This girl has a lot of books…) and sat down with Kyler to sort out his giant pile of miscellaneous plastic things:  legos, batman action figures, nerf foam darts, google-eyed glasses, superballs, Pokemon cards, and lord knows what.  I asked him to try to make groups of things that sort of go together, and after thinking he decided that “spy gear” and “bouncy things” were useful categories.  It was great – instead of having to ask him what every single item was and where it belonged, we both just grabbed up toys and said “Lego?  Bouncy?  Spy Gear?”  and tossed it into the appropriate drawer.

So the next day I figured Jaden and I would do the same thing.  She has lots and lots and lots (and lots) of cute little plastic animals.  How to sort them out??  I started with pandas.  Everything that was a panda went into a pile, and then all other black and white animals went into a pile next to them (ie orcas, penguins, dalmations).  But soon we ran into difficulty.  It turns out there’s a lot of categories I just don’t know.

I picked up a little plastic thing and it MOVED.  It moved and whirred and squeaked.  I dropped it.  It ran around the room.  I stuck a plastic beach pail over it.

“What is this, a toy rat?” I asked.

“It’s a Zuzu Pet,” Jaden said, sounding a little offended. “A hamster.”

“Ok,” I said.  “Can we turn it off?”

Evidently you cannot turn them off.  We left it under the pail and I was careful to pile up the other Zuzu pets without activating them.  The Zuzus also have little accessories.  I picked up a little hat.

“Is this a Zuzu hat?”  No.  Silly me.  Not a hat for Zuzus – obviously a hat for a….  Furbie. 

Ok, zuzu and furbie.  Got it.

Next…  what is this tiny thing?  Ah.  A FURBLE.  Zuzu, furbie, furble.  They each get their own pile.  And here is another furble….   NO!  That one is a squinky. 

Squinky?

We were only halfway through the job and we were just plain laughing ourselves silly.

Once we were finished unpacking we spent the rest of the day in the backyard pool.